A Trifling Murder (The Cookies and Kilts Cozy Mysteries)

The annual Robert Burns Birthday Dinner celebration is underway in the small Missouri town of Beaudin Trace. Guests gather to honor Scotland's national poet with bagpipes and haggis and a trifle for dessert. But everything isn't as smooth as Scotch whisky. The Society's president and vice-president have a very public haggle over the haggis. And less than an hour later, one of them is found dead.
And found by Kate Dunbar, owner of The Cookie Cutter Bakery. It wouldn't be too bad except the victim was murdered with her knife.
Gossip hints she is the killer. The majority of her customers must agree, for her bakery sales fall drastically. If she is to keep the business from crumbling, she needs to investigate.
But sleuthing is harder and more dangerous to Kate and those around her than she thought. Luckily, she gets help from the town's zany songwriter and his Scottie dog. Murder is no trifling matter.

A month-long trip to England during her college years introduced Jo to the joys of Things British. Since then, she has been lured back nearly a dozen times, and lived there during her professional folk singing stint. This intimate knowledge of Britain forms the backbone of both the Peak District mysteries and the McLaren cold case mystery series.
Jo's insistence for accuracy, from police methods and location layout to the general feel of the area, has driven her innumerable times to Derbyshire for research. These explorations and conferences with police friends provide the detail filling the books.
In 1999 Jo returned to Webster University to major in English. She graduated in 2001 with a BA degree and departmental honors.
Her cat Tennyson shares her St. Louis home.